Post-apocalyptic entomology

I’m left wondering if the Heygate Estate, at Elephant and Castle, South-East London, was ever the site of a gate through which hay was brought. For the last 40 years it has been the site of brutal concrete monolithic blocks of flats towering over small gloomy ‘communal’ gardens. Ever grim, in my memory, seen from the top of a passing bus, the estate became even grimmer as it was cleared of tenants, and boarded up in preparation for demolition. A year on from its final closure it stands as a Chernobyl-like shell, abandoned, desolate, empty — just the sort of place to do an environmental survey.

That’s where I’ve been today.

Actually, it was nowhere near as unnerving as I thought it might be. The sun was shining brightly, the air was alive with bees and butterflies. The gardens have run wild, the mown grass has grown shaggy, the pavements and cracked tarmac have acquired a green haze of thin vegetation. Overhead sparrowhawks were squealing.

And almost the very first insect of the day was a silver-washed fritillary. Ordinarily a relatively scarce creature of old woodlands, where the caterpillars feed on violets, growing in the dappled sunlight of coppice cycles and cleared glades, I’d have been pleased to find this in any Wealden forest. But in Elephant? Amazing.

I’m heading back there next week, for another look around. Purple emperor maybe?

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Incidentally, I love the fact that, in London, you can get into a bus or a taxi, say “Elephant please mate” to the driver, and yet this is accepted as perfectly normal behaviour.

The Bugman

CURIOUS? WHY CURIOUS?

When 17th century apothecary and naturalist James Petiver published a picture of what, for 200 years, would be Britain's most enigmatic butterfly, Albin's Hampstead Eye, he reported: "Where it was caught by this curious person". His implication was that Eleazar Albin was not just strange, not just odd, but was fuelled by curiosity.

Ongoing projects:

These are some of the books and other projects going on at the moment......

WASP

Dylan Thomas wondered deeply about the worth of wasps. Although we are not told which authors wrote them, among the 'useful' presents he recieved were 'books that told me everything about the wasp, except why. This is the why.

Beetles — in the Collins New Naturalist series

I like beetles, I like them very much indeed, so I wrote a book about them.

Call of nature: the secret life of dung

A key selling point is the fact that the spine of the book is adorned with an elephant's bottom. Publication: February 2017.

House guests, house pests

A natural history of animals in the home. Click here for details of how to get the now scarce hardback.

The paperbacks were released into the wild in February 2016

How to be a curious entomologist

A series of introductory 'how to' workshops/ seminars. Click here for follow-up information.

Mosquito

Published August 2012. How an irritating but trivial gnat became imbued with dark menace well beyond its diminutive size.